Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/stoppard-play-uses-rock-music-to-stage-a-revolution Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Playwright Tom Stoppard's latest work, "Rock'n'Roll," takes a new look at Czechoslovakia's 1989 Velvet Revolution, which toppled the then Soviet-backed Communist government. Jeffrey Brown looks at Stoppard's inspirations and talks to actors about portraying his characters. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: The strike is over; Broadway is back. A leading playwright is exploring a piece of recent history and its music. Jeffrey Brown has our story. JEFFREY BROWN: August 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia, putting a violent and abrupt end to the "Prague Spring," a period of reform and new openness in the tightly controlled communist regime. It would be another 21 years before Vaclav Havel, and others, brought an end to communism in their country through the so-called Velvet Revolution. ACTOR: Look at this. RUFUS SEWELL, Actor: Well, what is it? ACTOR: The file on you in Cambridge. RUFUS SEWELL: The file on me? JEFFREY BROWN: Playwright Tom Stoppard's latest work explores this period, and a young Czech named Jan… RUFUS SEWELL: You're such a defeatist! JEFFREY BROWN: … who returns to Prague in 1968 from his studies in England and is led to the dissident movement through an unlikely source, rock 'n' roll. RUFUS SEWELL: I came back to save rock 'n' roll — and my mother, actually. TOM STOPPARD, Playwright: One of the things the play is saying is that simply by playing banned music, writing banned plays, writing banned essays and novels, that is dissent.